Re: Floppy handling

From: Horst von Brand (vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl)
Date: Tue Jun 20 2000 - 06:05:54 EST


Oliver Neukum <Oliver.Neukum@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> said:
> Am Die, 20 Jun 2000 schrieben Sie:

[...]

> > Use automount. Trick to do so has been documented for ages.

> Trick is a little weak. Kludge actually.

How so?

> > > 3) make sure that the floppy drive busy light is on when their are dirty
> > > buffers for the floppy (may not be possible on all/any hardware)

> > Wears out the disk, perhaps damages heads of the drive. To do this probably
> > also implies a gross violation of layering within the kernel.

> Why ? You lock drive doors, too. Have the floppy driver interpret
> locking door as keeping light on.

Light on == motor running == disk spinning on flopppies

> > > 4) make sure that all dirty data is written back whenever the device
> > > would otherwise become not busy (this should keep the floppy drive light
> > > on, may not be appropriate for other kinds of removable media)

> > This probably implies a gross violation of layering within the kernel.

> No more than O_SYNC does. And it won't help you on filesystems that
> maintain a flag in the superblock.

That works on a file-by-file basis, not for a whole device.

> > Just use the graphical tools your desktop gives you, or use mtools.

> No good. Users will use the icons to mount, but simply pull the
> floppy when they are done.

Which they can do under Windows, MacOS, ... and screw up their data too.

-- 
Horst von Brand                             vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl
Casilla 9G, Vin~a del Mar, Chile                               +56 32 672616

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